Hitherto I have kept the story to myself. Even now, thinking about
it irritates me. It was not an agent who told me of it. I met a man
by chance in a railway carriage. He had a black eye. If ever I meet
him again I'll give him another. He accounted for it by explaining
that he had had trouble with a golf ball, and at the time I believed
him. I mentioned to him in conversation I was looking for a house.
He described this place to me, and it seemed to me hours before the
train stopped at a station. When it did I got out and took the next
train back. I did not even wait for lunch. I had my bicycle with
me, and I went straight there. It was--well, it was the house I
wanted. If it had vanished suddenly, and I had found myself in bed,
the whole thing would have seemed more reasonable. The proprietor
opened the door to me himself. He had the bearing of a retired
military man. It was afterwards I learnt he was the proprietor.

"I said, 'Good afternoon; if it is not troubling you, I would like to
look over the house.' We were standing in the oak-panelled hall. I
noticed the carved staircase about which the man in the train had
told me, also the Tudor fireplaces. That is all I had time to
notice. The next moment I was lying on my back in the middle of the
gravel with the door shut. I looked up. I saw the old maniac's head
sticking out of a little window. It was an evil face. He had a gun
in his hand.

"'I'm going to count twenty,' he said. 'If you are not the other
side of the gate by then, I shoot.'

"I ran over the figures myself on my way to the gate. I made it
eighteen.